


the hazards of adventuring

by dizzy, waveydnp



Series: fics for people [10]
Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, References to Illness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-27
Updated: 2019-03-27
Packaged: 2019-12-25 06:58:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18256118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dizzy/pseuds/dizzy, https://archiveofourown.org/users/waveydnp/pseuds/waveydnp
Summary: dan is sick and needs phil’s help getting home from the doctor





	the hazards of adventuring

**Author's Note:**

> written for knquiet on tumblr <3

He only makes it a block before he has to sit on a bench and hack up a lung. He coughs so long and hard it burns his throat and he has to spit what comes up into a nearby bin.

It’s disgusting. It’s humiliating. It’s painful. But at least now he has an explanation. 

His phone dings in his pocket and he pulls it out to read the multiple texts from Phil asking how the appointment went and what he’s sick with and why he hasn’t texted back yet.

The truth is Dan’s afraid to tell Phil what’s wrong. He’s afraid to tell Phil that he has a fairly advanced case of pneumonia and his lungs are half full of mucus and if he’d left it even a day longer to seek treatment he would’ve had to have been admitted to hospital and added at least a week to his recovery time.

He’s afraid to tell Phil all this because it was Phil who told him there was probably nothing wrong. It’s not like Phil hadn’t cared, it’s not like he hasn’t been hovering like a mother hen over Dan for the past few days. But - they’ve both had plenty of colds, and surely that’s all it was, right? That’s all Phil thought it was. A particularly nasty cold, not really worth spending a doctor’s time over. Phil even went to Tesco late at night to get Dan something to help him sleep, a nice drowsy-making bottle of cough medicine that tastes nothing at all like the fresh fruity flavor the bottle proclaimed. 

Dan reckons he can probably stop with that stuff, at least. He’s got a load of pills to take now. Pills and then pills for those pills and just the thought of it makes him swallow hard reflexively against the unpleasantness lingering in his throat. He really hates taking pills. 

He does have to tell Phil eventually, but he decides it can wait until he’s home. He texts back that he’ll live and he’s on his way. 

Which he will be. Just as soon as he feels like he can get up off of this bench. Any minute now. As soon as each breath in doesn’t feel like a struggle. It feels rather a deep shame that paying for his tablets at the pharmacy and walking a solitary block was enough to having him knocking on death’s door, but apparently it was.

He starts coughing again just as a lady walks by him and gives him a proper dirty look. He wants to shout at her that he’s not a chain smoker or a drug addicted vagrant, he’s just a nice boy who happens to be deathly ill and drowning in his own bodily fluids.

He’s not at death’s door, obviously. But if he tells Phil the truth Phil will probably think he is. He’ll google pneumonia and have a fit about how many babies and old ladies die from it every day.

He forces himself up because disdain from strangers is as powerful a motivator as Dan could imagine. He tries to keep his inhales shallow so he doesn’t have to stop every ten seconds to cough and gag on his phlegm, but that just means he’s winded after a couple of minutes and leaning against a lamppost and spitting straight onto the pavement as he gasps to get a proper amount of air into his lungs.

He’s sure more people are giving him more dirty looks, but luckily at the moment he’s facing the road so he can’t see them. His body shakes and he’s not sure if it’s the weird adrenaline that comes from feeling so vulnerable and exposed at the same time or if it’s the same clammy awful feverish chills that he’s been dealing with every night for hours and hours as he tossed and turned between their sheets. 

The urge to cry overtakes him suddenly. Maybe he should have broken open those pill packets right there on the street and taken them, maybe they’d already be working in his system now. Probably not, but regret seems all he’s capable of at the moment. Regret and holding onto a lamp post. 

-

He makes it another block up after an embarrassing number of minutes. He knows all he has to do now is find the right bus that’ll take him close to home and then… walk the final few blocks. 

Fuck. 

His legs start to shake and he’s really not sure if he can do this at all. Exhaustion feels bone deep at this point. He finds another bench and sits, arms on his thighs and head bowed down. He can feel another cough building and his head already hurts from the force of the last round. His mouth tastes awful and his throat feels coated and that crying feeling hasn’t really left. 

This shouldn’t be so hard but suddenly it feels impossible. He gets his phone out and sees more texts from Phil, the words blurry on the screen until he scrubs his palm over his eyes to wipe away the smeared moisture caught there. He blinks a few times and the world comes into focus, narrowed down as it is to this little screen. 

Phil’s sent him a few emojis and then, minutes later, a picture of a shiba inu dressed as a doctor with a joke about Dan having gone to the wrong doctor. 

Dan starts crying. He throws the few fucks he has left to the wind and dials Phil’s number and cries harder when he hears Phil’s voice on the other end.

“Dan?”

Still crying.

“What’s wrong? What happened?”

Coughing now, still with tears in his eyes and snot running down into his mouth. God. This could actually be the lowest moment of his life. He can’t make words come out, he’s coughing too much and sobbing a little.

“Dan what the hell happened, where are you?” He’s starting to panic, Dan can tell. 

“Text you,” Dan manages to choke out before hanging up and opening imessages. 

_i need you to come pick me up don’t think i can make it home alone_

-

Sitting and waiting for Phil is one of the longest experiences of his life. He knows people are staring and all he can do is hope beyond hope that one of them isn’t a fan, that no one recognizes this leaking mess of a human being as someone worth taking a picture of or tweeting about. 

Phil keeps texting him the whole time and Dan knows it’s partly to calm Dan down and partly so Phil himself can keep calm. Dan’s usually the one who thinks quickly in a crisis, but Phil’s area of crisis management expertise happens to be very Dan-centric. 

He’s mostly stopped crying by the time Phil does get there, but just the sight of him looking fresh faced with his hair pushed back the way he does sometimes when it’s just them in the flat - it sets Dan off again. His chin wobbles and his chest hurts and his body doesn’t have enough strength for tears and coughing at the same time but somehow it perseveres in its mission to make him as miserable as possible. 

Phil sits down beside him and rubs his hand in circles on Dan’s back as Dan waits for the itching in his chest to calm down and whatever needs out of his body to work its way out. He spits into the bin beside him again and then rubs his face on his sleeve. 

“You’re really ill,” Phil says quietly.

Dan nods.

“Why haven’t you told me what it is?” His hand stays pressed against the small of Dan’s back. Anyone could see, but Dan’s glad Phil doesn’t take it away just yet.

“Oh god, Dan,” Phil says, and his voice has pitched way up. “What is it, is it—”

“It’s pneumonia,” Dan says before Phil can let himself spiral any further. “My lungs are full of bogey.”

Phil ignores Dan’s attempt at levity completely. “Oh shit. That’s serious.”

Dan nods. “M’okay, though. Got drugs. Lots of ‘em.”

Phil looks stricken. He stares at Dan’s face while his own goes a little paler. “I told you not to bother going to the doctor.”

“And I agreed, until I didn’t.” He’s not going to tell Phil everything the doctor said about how he should have been in days ago. That’s something he can definitely keep to himself. “I’m gonna be—” 

He has to stop then to cough, which is quite annoying timing really. He doesn’t like how scared Phil looks.

“Fine,” Dan chokes, then spits into the bin again. “It’s just an infection. You know I’ve had worse.”

“That doesn’t make me feel better,” Phil says solemnly.

“Can we go home? I really just wanna go home.”

That seems to work to distract Phil from falling apart with guilt and worry. “I’m gonna ring for a cab.”

“Oh.” Dan feels like an utter fool. “I guess I could have just done that in the first place instead of making you come all the way out—”

“Shut up.” Phil’s words don’t have quite the bite they would have if he weren’t still rubbing Dan’s back and trying to find the taxi service number with the other. 

Dan doesn’t have the energy to even beat himself up. He will later, he’s sure, but right now he just slumps into Phil’s side and listens to the sound of Phil’s voice giving their location. 

-

The second he tries to stand, he feels like a puppet whose strings have all been cut. “How the hell did I get through that entire video in the park?” He groans, clinging onto Phil’s arms. 

If he were of a clearer mind, he might notice how Phil doesn’t even bother to look around and see if anyone is watching. He might notice and he might be equally thrilled and scared by it. But right now all his attention is on not passing out, and apparently that’s Phil’s biggest concern, too. 

“I shouldn’t have let you go off alone this morning,” Phil says, frowning and taking most of Dan’s weight. “You didn’t seem this poorly.” 

“I didn’t feel as bad this morning,” Dan says, trying to reassure him. Even words feel like an effort right now. “Still felt like shit. But not this bad.” 

“You’ve been overdoing it.” 

Dan half-shrugs. It is what the doctor had said, and he’s not going to argue either of them right now. He’d slept for sixteen straight hours once they got in from filming that Pokemon video. He’d left Phil to edit it almost completely alone. “I guess.” 

“You won’t anymore, alright?” Phil takes the bag of medicine boxes and packets from Dan. “The car’s almost here, I think it’s that one slowing down.” 

Once they make it into the car Dan slumps his head against the window and asks the driver to turn up the AC. He hadn’t noticed before how hot it was but now that he’s not got to worry about fainting in the street or people giving him judging looks he realizes he’s sweating on top of everything else.

“I need a bloody shower,” he murmurs.

“You’ll have a bath,” Phil says authoritatively.

Dan lifts his head weakly and cocks an eyebrow in question.

“No more long periods of standing,” Phil says, and Dan can’t actually argue with that.

“Not a hot one though,” Dan says. “And not a long one. Just wanna get clean and then go to bed, I’m fucking knackered.”

Phil nods. “You definitely need to sleep.”

Dan feels like he’s already halfway there. He fumbles a hand on the leather seat until he finds Phil’s and squeezes it. “Thanks for rescuing me.”

Phil answers by squeezing back.

“You’re not allowed to worry,” Dan says quietly, watching the passing cars out the window and feeling lulled by the movement of the cab.

“Impossible.”

Dan chuckles. “Fine. But you’re _actually_ not allowed to google pneumonia.”

“You know I’m just gonna do it while you’re sleeping.”

Dan tries to shove at Phil but only ends up weakly pushing against his hand. “Whatever. If you’re really worried you’d offer to get in the bath and wash my hair for me.” 

It’s a testament to how sick Dan is and how worried Phil is that neither of them even think to make a joke about anything else. Phil just pulls Dan’s hand onto his lap and covers it with both of his own. “Of course.” 

“And my balls,” Dan adds, because he is still Dan, after all. And maybe a little delirious now. “They’re really sweaty.”

Phil snorts. “Fine, your sweaty balls too.” 

Dan grins and rests his head against the back of his seat, closing his eyes. He still feels like a steaming pile of something unpleasant, but at least he’ll be home to hack into his own bin and have Phil fuss over him soon. 

Maybe he can even convince Phil to hold him while he sleeps, or at least bring the laptop into bed and sit next him. Sometimes, oftentimes even, Dan needs to have his own space, even if it’s just a personal sized little bubble or spending time a room over from Phil for a while, but when he’s ill is definitely not one of those times.

When he’s ill he reverts almost all the way back in time. He’s eight years old again and he just wants someone to stroke his hair and bring him medicine and keep close, tell him he’s a brave boy and he’ll feel better soon.

He closes his eyes and lets the taxi rock him to sleep. He’s still holding Phil’s hand. He doesn’t care if the driver sees.


End file.
